- I’m honored to be on the Dzanc Books list of Writers to Watch.
- There’s a big Dzanc sale happening through July 9th. Today I recommend Kyle Minor and Robert Lopez. Every day I recommend Kyle Minor and Robert Lopez.
- Richard Thomas is giving five copies of his book away on Goodreads.
- I ordered coffee on an airplane last week and the attendant handed me a packet of corn syrup to go with it.
- Today I’m learning about combination vehicles.
Monthly Archive for June, 2010
New skin ended up being spiders. My right arm is a constellation. My parents and I went to see Psycho in the theater. It was great to see, particularly that last shot. The place was doing a raffle beforehand and I won a book called “The Moment of Psycho: How Alfred Hitchcock Taught America to Love Murder.” When the guy was describing the book, I thought I want that book, and then I won it, so I think it’s a sign. That colon in the title makes me worry it is one of those repackaged grad thesis things wherein allusions are carefully described. Hope not.
I feel like I’m at a church lock-in. (Did you know that they sometimes lock the children in?) When I was young I was required to memorize all 107 elements of The Shorter Catechism. An older lady came over to the house every week and went over them with me. Here’s #87:
Q. What is repentance unto life?
A: Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, doth, with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of, and endeavor after, new obedience.
- you’re welcome
Of course, it’s all gone now. I think there’s not enough memorization in education today. After I passed the confirmation test, the older lady gave me a porcelain figurine of an angel holding a flute.
I’ve played more Solitaire than is allowed by law and now I’m on the run. Keep a candle in the window for me.
I flew over a forest fire to get here. Mom puts four bottles of hot sauce on the table with every meal. A yoga instructor told us to imagine we were chocolate bars melting under the sun. Dad helped me repair my busted “A” key so I could type my name again. Temps are supposed to get up to 108°F on Wednesday. I’m sharing the guest bed with a pile of straw. The wind feels like a flat stone pressed against my face and the water tastes like home. I’m growing a new skin.
I’ve been staring at the same three hundred words for the past two hours. The coffee I made looks like an oil spill. I’m considering Top Kill. I’ve never liked running but lately I go out at the hottest part of the day, which is any part of the day in June here. It’s like bikram yoga but with running. The soundtrack alternates between Die Antwoord and DMX. I wonder how many people in the history of the world have had to run for their lives and what that would look like spliced back-to-back on YouTube. This should all be a list but I don’t believe in lists, paragraphs, or coffee. Once I ran because a homeless guy was chasing me, though I still think he was kidding around. Homeless guys in Phoenix have kind of a sun-addled sense of humor. I’d like to say more but that seems against the oink oink oink oink oink oink oink. Well anyway later.
Hefting a 40lb bag of cat litter improperly out of the truckbed, I bent my wrist in a bad direction and now it feels wrong. Raekwon says, “Fucked up my writing hand, that’s my check.” I wrote two more articles on the importance of CDL licensing for truck drivers and wrapped the sore part up. It feels nice with an ice pack so I decided to write some more. It’s fun to learn new things about truckers and write about them. I think the most dangerous job in the world might be contract truck driving in Iraq.
I got a massage last week from a woman named Aileen. I had a coupon and my shoulders were sore from bench so I went in. It was a pretty good massage though not quite as good as the one other massage I’ve had, in Singapore, where the woman got up on the table to try and press through my body. I found myself thinking each time about how strange and good it is that people spend time learning how to touch one another in professionally comforting ways. I thought about telling Aileen this but decided against.
- On the Weather.com homepage, the tabs read Maps, Tornado, Tragedy, and World Cup. This is relevant to my interests.
- I’ve been reading Lydia Davis’s collected. It’s a good writer who makes you stop reading and check your cabinets for cockroaches.
- A couple click beetles keep getting caught in a spiderwebs next to my bookshelf. They make click noises and freak the cats out.
- With the cats shedding for summer I’m sweeping every day.
- Reorganizing the book. I’ve got a map with things scratched out and arrows.
- Kind of enamored with the idea of Carolyn Chute. Illiterate husband and an AK-47. Haven’t read her.
- Review of one of Chute’s books on Amazon: “I can’t believe this thing was a bestseller. I read this because it was featured in the book How To Write A Breakout Novel and sounded interesting. I was wrong.”
- How To Write A Breakout Novel
- Mushroom stroganoff night. Too much flour made it very thick, but otherwise it was fine.
- Tour rumblings. Teacups jitter off the table.
Last night, Lydia Davis came to me in my dream with a story. We were sitting together in the library at Arizona State and she kept laughing to herself and saying that she and her sister used to tell this story all the time but she hadn’t told it in years. She said that there was once a village of people who were chased by pillows. These murderous pillows could end the lives of your entire family in seconds. They must have been some kind of dark spirit because the only way to ward against them was to line up with your family and hold a cross over your stomach.
The story skipped to a family lining up in the village. The family was laughing even though the situation was very serious: they only had five crosses between the six of them. The youngest boy couldn’t find his cross and he went to stand by himself. The mother held a heavy crucifix over her pregnant belly. The pillows began to arrive in vans covered in pillows. The vans were leaping gracefully over the mountains, doing acrobatic moves, silhouetted by the sun. The family was amazed and entertained at the performance. Each laughed and clapped politely by patting one hand against an arm while still holding the cross. In the moment before the pillows arrived, the father ran to his son and held him close, pressing his cross to the boy’s stomach.
Thanks to Lydia Davis for entering my dreams and telling me a story.
This coffee shop is playing Wherein The Beatles Rip Off Motown So Hard and Still You Love It. The early stuff, man.
Dika Lam has a kind review of AM/PM up at The Nervous Breakdown. I read it while sitting in the chair I sat in to write some of the stories in the book while staring at the car dealership across the street. The car dealership has a fake gabled terrace with a fake widow’s walk and I still wonder what kind of person owns that thing.
I feel like Ringo every day
The LitDrift contest is over: congratulations to Grahame Turner on the occasion of your victory. The other highlight happened when someone named Carrie referred to me as the President of Hot Dogs. The POHD finally gets some cred. Carrie, you are the President of My Heart. Drop me a line and I will send you a copy of the book with love.
Questions Asked While Listening to Your Love is My Drug: The lyric is “My steeze is gonna be affected / if I keep it up like a lovesick crackhead.” However. Doesn’t it make more sense to say crack-sick crackhead? A lovesick crackhead might be easily distracted by other things, including but not limited to feelings of agitation, depression, extreme fatigue, anxiety, angry outbursts, and thoughts of the substance itself. The illness associated with a craving for the drug seems to have more of a one-to-one connection. “I’m sick for you like I’m sick for crack cocaine.” Now that has a nice direct feel.
AM/PM is the prize for Free Book Friday this week at LitDrift. Simply comment on the post over there by noon on June 4 to be entered.
Still working through the Wigleaf Top 50. My favorite from the latest batch is Joshua Cohen’s “Identical City” from Fanzine. The #3 “single” blows my mind a little more each time I read it.
Woke up singing Ke$ha’s summer jam “Your Love is My Drug.” It’s another day in the life of the president of hot dogs.
I read this terrifying article about salt. A cup of Cheez-Its contains a third of your RDA of sodium, because there is salt in the dough, salt in the cheese, and salt atop the cracker. Without salt, the processed foods you may know well (cornflakes, chicken soup) taste metallic and medicinal. Sometimes when I read articles like this I want to immediately buy and eat a box of Pop Tarts.
I just learned I’m reading at the Happy Ending series in NYC on July 7 with Shane “Shanke” Jones. Party hats for everyone. Party hats for the animals and the people alike.
